Lecture photographer Rob Hornstra - The Sochi Project

When & where?

World Press Photo Award winner Rob Hornstra - just returned from his latest trip to Russia - will give a lecture about The Sochi Project.

The lecture is followed by a personal tour at the exhibition of The Sochi Project in the Atrium, the city town hall opposite of Theater aan het Spui.

Photographer Rob Hornstra and writer/filmmaker Arnold van Bruggen have been documenting the changes in the area around Sochi since 2009 and plan to continue until 2014. The Sochi Project is a dynamic mix of documentary photography, film and reportage about a world in flux; a world full of different realities within a small but extraordinary geographic area.

In 2014, the Olympic Games will take place in Sochi, Russia. Never before have the Olympic Games been held in a region that contrasts more strongly with the glamour of the Games than Sochi. Just 20 kilometres away is the conflict zone Abkhazia. To the east the Caucasus Mountains stretch into obscure and impoverished breakaway republics such as Karachay-Cherkessia, North Ossetia and Chechnya. On the coast old Soviet sanatoria stand shoulder to shoulder with the most expensive hotels and clubs of the Russian Riviera. Due to the upcoming games, the area around Sochi will change beyond recognition. The extreme makeover is already underway; refugee flats and poverty-stricken resorts are disappearing at high speed from the partly fashionable, partly impoverished seaside resort of Sochi. Thousands of labourers from across Russia and abroad live in prefab accommodation in order to have the stadiums, hotels and modern infrastructure finished on time. The economic crisis is glossed over as much as possible.